Going Home
by Luceo non Uro 1996
Summary: A Warder (or two) lost, and a daughter comes home (fits along with the series Her First Life but can be read alone)


The house never changed every board, each shingle, the red door out back and the green door in front the same as when she left. A perfect circle, their haven from the outside world, or so she'd been told, no different. Any visit was a step back in time, to an age few remembered and those who did wish they could forget, but her mother lived in the past, convinced that peace ever balanced on the edge of a knife. If age begot wisdom, Helen had the feeling Yillana was the exception.

An old sentiment, darker than the forest canopy she trudged under, held close ever since her first night beyond their clearing as a child. The beginning of a lifetime of searching, first in Emond's Field, then in Shienar and until the tower every night as she closed her eyes to a gateway opening for her to leave. With curiosity unbounded she wished for nothing more than an adventure, to travel, across the Dragon Wall, into Sharara, the Land of Madmen. Jain Farstrider as her guide with nothing but her wits and bravery she would journey even further, gathering stories to rival anything her father or uncle told. Never one to settle for less than what she thought she deserved such adventure her foolish self-found, only it came with a price she was unwilling to pay.

Reaching out Helen swung, alone she could let her mother's temper rise, and her fist hit a sapling, so it snapped falling under the weave of air. This is why she never came home, too many memories.

Four hidden perches circling the property Helen checked, the climb soothing despite the circumstance. Her mother never one for propriety could very well have scrambled up a tall oak, but each platform was empty, though the tree closest to the house sat littered with signs of life. Yarrin must have sat up the night before, ever watchful, accompanied by a book or the ghost of her father. Mother once wrote she would hear him in conversation and feel his sadness.

Helen shook her head touching Yillana's most recent note, still ten years old, buried deep in her pocket, almost falling for her trouble as she descended making her way to the red door.

 _Greens and their warders._

The thought, one she often had, as did every other sister when wading through the Battle Ajah troubles never evoked any undue feelings, but this Green was her mother, a woman grieving a loss worse than death.

A creek, a scrape, the back door never fit its frame, and Helen pushed harder than necessary letting her frustration out on the weathered wood so that it flew open to an empty kitchen, each glow bulb dim.

There was no logic to her mother's actions, just as she found little logic in her sneaking up the steep stairs, the faulty fifth step squeaking, so she cringed then stopped ashamed of her hunched posture, hand clenched on the banister. She was no longer a frightened child fearing her mother's questioning voice over the railing; she was Aes Sedai so straightened her step, touching the bond nestled in the back of her head before settling her Grey shawl around her shoulders.

With a face harder than stone Jason had berated her as only a brother could for leaving Benjamin at home, rubbing the impression across his forehead as he let out a weary sigh, Moiraine resting a hand on his arm, comforting and calm.

"This is woman's business brother" his twin giving voice to Helens thought, without the icy tone and clip over his ears. Another day such comment would have garnered a reply harsh enough to raise her hackles in preparation for a fight, but a gentle nod was all she received as her brother pushed himself from the table.

"Then let me do you a courtesy Aes Sedai" tiredness she had not previously noticed dampening his words "let me tell the truth of the matter unless you wish to walk in blind."

She felt sorry for her deception, truly she did, the twins only wanted what they thought best for mother- but even more then this was woman's business, it was tower business. The letter had been clear, overcome with grief Olwyn feared for her own life as well as those in Emond's field and wished for Yillana to be taken to Tar Valon, so Helen came, expressly sent for.

Helen clutched her skirts as sudden a crash broke her thought then returned them to the twins grim tale of suicide attempts, fires set to half of North Wood, and sheet lightning cracking over the whole of Manethren for months. Such ideas hurried her slippered feet, gliding across the hardwood, settling her composure and dismissing frustration for a mask of serenity to meet her mother's sadness. With not so much as a click the latch lifted, a small weave of air opened the door, Helen did not touch sadier. The room was still, glow bulbs similarly dim with one shattered and just beyond, a blue light that filled half the room suspended above a pale figure, regal in dark green silk falling in pleats and waves as she sat.

Impulsive, stubborn even dangerous, Helen lived a life told she was her mother, save that good sense and black hair. Both gifts from her late father, who's death once saw her mother in the same dress, a pillar of stone, only then she'd had Yarrin to lean against, now she sat alone.

"And I thought they would send Jason."

She gripped the doorway preparing to fight; she would not be sent away, a small splinter driving into her palm as she did caused her to flinch and her mother to laugh, mirthless and cold.

"You believe too many stories daughter; I am no more fit to strike you down or send you away than a mouse is to strangle a cat."

Another step, across the threshold, rubbing her palm, now close enough to make out Yillana's face, eyes far away as if she watched out the window waiting for his return, only the curtains sat closed.

"A sitter of the hall daughter, and so young," this step faltered, such conversation unexpected, the pride in her voice catching Helen off guard. A pause, her mother, turned from the closed window to smile, tears trailing down her cheeks "your father would have been proud my dear."

Swallowing the lump clogging her throat Helen split her gaze between her mother and the shattered glow bulb, deciding on the state of her safety once sat opposite Yillana, the thick pleats of her dress not enough to hide the wickedly sharp knife clutched in her hand. Long as her forearm the blade came to a point barely visible buried in green silk, the pommel held comfortable and familiar. She'd seen her mother kill with that knife, a trader in Illian then a Dark Friend in Malkier, both men dead before they hit the ground, not a drop of blood to be seen. Then Helen had kept her composure by sheer force of will, determined to prove herself Aes Sedai despite the want to turn and vomit, now she barely flinched as she took Yillana's hand, the small piece of wood driven deeper into her skin.

Voice quiet, as if sudden noise would startle either of them to some rash action "I was raised barely a month ago, Sylvia finally announced her retirement. She put my name forward; the hall sat for less than an hour before coming to their decision."

Her mothers responding expression tore at her heart; it held a plea, for what she did not know and a farewell so sincere, so full of pain she wanted to cry and beg an end to this madness.

"What of Jason," Yillana's soft smile never leaving, though the knife shifted ever so slightly in her hands, the tip coming to rest against the bodice of her gown and Helens tenuous grip on the pommel tightened, pulling it ever so slightly out of the other woman's grasp.

"And Moiraine"

The knife jerked back, and Helen's composure dropped momentarily as her nails dug into her mother's hand to scrap along skin, wood and between clenched teeth spoke, enduring that haunting stare.

"Jason returned to Malkier two days ago; Cam is bed ridden with her sickness" Yillana blinked, possible sympathy lighting her eyes but her hand continued to strain to bring the weapon forward tears still rolling down her cheeks.

"Moiraine still waits in Emond's Field with Olwyn."

Knee to knee, so close she could make out subtle creases, laugh lines they were called pulling at the corner of her mother's mouth, around her eyes, though no laughter had graced this room for months. With the mention of the Kinswoman, she found herself suddenly alone by the window, her mother finding her feet, rising swiftly in a swoosh of dark silk.

Stifling a yip at the knife dragged from her grasp, she did not move despite her wants to tackle Yillana.

"The tower sent you then" her mother's tone accusatory, any of its earlier distance or sadness gone, no longer melancholy or wistful.

Helen said nothing, what could she do, tell the truth. How she was in fact called away from the tower by a frantic Olwyn and sat before her and the twins. They would have balked at her outright refusal to take Yillana to Tar Valon. Despite what she told her brother or the half-truths her sister's adviser whispered in ears their mother was no more welcome in Tar Valon after a fifty-year absence than she had been the day after her trial.

"I come and go as I please" haughty pride behind her words, spoken in a flash of anger to match her mothers quickly extinguished as another glow bulb snapped accompanying the realization she had said the wrong thing entirely.

"Olwyn sent me" she tried again placid and calm, inwardly berating herself for the loss of control, such feelings she thought to have left on the road.

Her mother's face did not change as she held sadier, eyes dead, watery and hollow above her now manic smile. Another pop, this one just over her head.

"A fact I am sorely aware of sister."

Helen arched her back as crushed glass trickled down between her skin and dress accompanying a small chill dulled only by her surprise. Surely her mother hadn't just addressed her as _sister._ Never one for subtly, the confusion of her words, light help her even the knife, either spoke to sadness beyond her comprehension or something else entirely.

The last bulb shattered, and Helen embraced sadier, sweet life flowing through her, the room jumping sharply into focus, despite the dim, quickly remedied as the drapes slid open with a thread of air. Sunlight poured through the window reaching full across the room a reminder it was high summer and barely past midday. Squinting in response to the newly lightened room Yillana continued to hold the source, an immense amount- as much as she could hold Helen suspected. Indeed a danger made more so by her unstable condition and the fact that her mother was for the first time in many years free of the collar that limited her use of the source to a trickle.

"Hands around my neck for fifty years" her mother whispered as if she knew what Helen was thinking making the Grey blink, more of a reaction than she should have allowed herself.

"Yarrin never liked the collar, always said the bond felt funny, blurry as if it was permanently stunned and reeling. He helped me get it off the first time, you were barely two, your father had found himself in trouble, and I couldn't very well sit at home and leave him be. It took us three days and by then time we finally made it to the borderlands he was half dead, thrown in a ditch left to rot. The stupid man had dragged himself almost a mile, broken legs trailing behind him wounds infected, delirious, weak as a kitten" - Helen let out a breath, the beginning of laugh at her father's comparison to a cat. He was many things but a kitten, even when wounded, never - only in her mother's eyes.

"What would they say, to see you like this" - the thought voiced by accident at the sudden memory painful as much as it was unexpected. She actively avoided thoughts of her late fathers death and Helen bit her tongue awaiting an explosion only to let out another breath, this time in thinly veiled relief and surprise as the dagger lowered.

"Truthfully daughter" - a clatter as steel hit wood, sadier gone, Yillana sank to the floor head down "I don't know"

Helen did not reply only wiped away a sudden tear trailing down her cheek to settle on her chin, a diplomats composure quickly fading

"And no one can bring themselves to remind me" she hesitated, each word measured suddenly looking very small, a pale figure hunched on the floor, engulfed in the loss, a lifetime of decisions and their consequences at her feet. Suddenly very far from the dangerous woman she'd been sent to rain in.

Stock still she watched Yillana come undone, unable to move- what could she say, what could she do. Helen came to fight, not to offer comfort, or to laugh or cry or even remember. She'd expected her mother to lash out in anger but now -nothing. Only the quiet hiccup as her mother shook, then a sniff that Helen realized as her own, echoing in a otherwise dead silence.

Determine not to cry Helen stood, back to the window, the sun no longer directly over head. How much time had passed, an hour, two, she didn't know but she had to go, this battle was not to be won today, one did not negotiate emotionally compromised. Fighting her own grief a sagging weight to replace her earlier calm she took a step, then another but Helen got no farther before she found herself folded on the floor joining Yillana in a stiff collide of fabric and tears.


End file.
